Saturday, April 29, 2017

The picture pasted in this post is copied from a Facebook post, made presumably by a Pakistani, about Ehsanullah Ehsan, a Jihadi terrorist who reportedly surrendered himself to Pakistan's security agencies this month.

Ehsan is a former spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), who claimed in a video released on 26 April 2017 by Pakistan's ISI that TTP had been getting funding from Indian intelligence agency RAW for spreading terrorism in Pakistan.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Has Kavita Krishnan, a member of the Polit Bureau of CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, joined news agency ANI as a reporter?

Going by the ANI "report" pasted below -- which I first noticed 're-reported' on Tuesday on the website of Pakistani newspaper Dawn -- that would be the first impression one would get.

Posted on 25 April 2017 on Hindustan Times website, the ANI report says Krishnan "unfolded" in a Facebook post a "shocking case of religious discrimination" on a Delhi Metro train against an "elderly Muslim gentleman".

The report includes Krishnan's Facebook post of April 23 --- an 891-word tirade against "communal bullying" with references to Islamophobia, Yogi Adityanath, anti-Romeo squads, cow protection, Muslim women, Valmiki community, Kashmiri students, Africans in India, vulnerable communities, racist abuse, lynchings, and such other engaging topics --- but has no original quote of the persons actually involved in the alleged incident.

There is no indication in the ANI report that the reporter directly spoke with Santosh Roy (who is said to have come forward to help the "elderly Muslim gentlemen") or the victim, or a police person.

The entire report seems to have been based on Krishnan's Facebook post.

As a journalist, I never thought that this kind of "reporting" -- based on someone's Facebook post with no indication of the reporter having directly spoken to the people involved in the incident -- would ever pass muster with any editor.

If this kind of "reporting" does pass muster with ANI editors, let them state it clearly and publicly, so that the public is warned.

This hearsay cannot be deemed anything but fake news.

And with all due respect to Krishnan -- (whom reporters tend always to describe as a "women's rights activist" rather than as a politician belonging to CPI-ML Liberation, as the ANI reporter has done in this case) -- I don't know anyone who views her as anything but a shrill political partisan.

In yet another shocking case of religious discrimination, an aged Muslim man was denied a seat in Delhi metro by a group of youth, who hurled slurs and abuses at him over his appearance.

The incident took place in the violet line of Delhi Metro where the young men turned down the request of a senior citizen of vacating a seat and told him to go to Pakistan if he wishes to get a seat in the coach.

The incident came into view after women’s right activist Kavita Krishnan unfolded this shameful incident in her Facebook post.

According to the post, the National Secretary of AICCTU, Santosh Roy, intervened and came forward in support of the old man.

When Roy asked the young men to apologise to the man, they refused and also held Roy by his collar and allegedly told him to “Go to Pakistan”.

Finally, when a guard entered the compartment at the Khan Market station. A complaint was filed at the Pandara Road police station where they were taken.

A few days later, when Roy visited the police station he came to know that the elderly man had decided not to pursue the complaint.

“The elderly gentleman had given a written statement that he accepted the apology from the two young men and that he had forgiven them keeping in mind their young age,” Krishnan added.

---------

The news in question can be read on news agency ANI's website on the link pasted below.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Tablighi Jamaat is an Islamic missionary movement that focuses on urging Muslims to return to primary Sunni Islam; it was started in 1927 by Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi in India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablighi_Jamaat

The organisation -- which maintains its international headquarters in Nizamuddin West in Delhi -- is currently estimated to have between 12 million and 150 million adherents (the majority living in South Asia), and a presence in somewhere between 150 and 213 countries.

It has been called "one of the most influential religious movements in 20th century Islam".

In recent years, security and intelligence experts across the world have discovered a number of links between Tablighi Jamaat and the Jihadis, including in cases of terror attacks in San Bernardino (California, December 2, 2015), and Orlando (Florida, June 12, 2016)

https://counterjihadreport.com/tag/tablighi-jamaat/

I have pasted below an interesting article on Tablighi Jamaat, which I have translated from Urdu to English.

Presumably written by a Pakistani, the article explains how initiation into Tablighi Jamaat can make one bump into a Jihadi or two and may even lead one into becoming an active Jihadi.

This article was posted in Feb. 2016 on https://bhensaa.wordpress.com/

This site appears to carry some of the material originally posted on Facebook page Bhensa, which has been blocked by Pakistani authorities for acting as a forum for people who have allegedly been blaspheming against Islam.
------From Tablighi Jamaat to Taliban

(Posted on February 3, 2016 by Bhensa)

It’s crucial to look at Tablighi Jamaat’s thinking in
relation to that of Jihadis in order to be able to have an idea about its links
with the latter.

Both (Tablighi Jamaat and the Jihadis) think that the
majority of us Muslims have lost our way. Both think that the age in which the
Prophet of Islam lived 1400 years of ago was the best of times and we all
should endeavour to bring back that age.

Both believe strongly that Muslims are superior than
all other nations of the world.

Both think that it’s the right of the Muslims to rule over
the entire world – Islam will one day dominate the globe and we will have to
struggle to achieve that end.

Both view this word as perishable and the promised world as
eternal.

That being the case, they say, we should not to be too
concerned with this world, but prepare for the end of the world.

This view not only takes a common man away from science,
technology and progress, but also helps to prepare the minds of would be
suicide bombers.

Both (Tablighi Jamaat and the Jihadis)believe that the entire non-Muslim world is
engaged in conspiring against the Muslims and is scared of the power of Islam.

Both often talk about the Prophet’s prediction that a
righteous people will rise one day, carrying the message of Allah.

Both are absolutely certain that Islam is the
only right religion in the world and that people can attain salvation only
by accepting Islam.

Both say it often that it’s incumbent upon them to carry the
message of Allah to the world – and that they would be strictly held to account
on the Day of Judgement if they failed to discharge this duty.

Both talk a lot about the blessings to be had in
the Jannat.

Many times things are told in such an exaggerated manner that
an unbiased person is left astonished – stories about the (promised) houris,
palaces and other amenities to be provided in the Jannat, and the severe
suffering that awaits the non-Muslims and the sinful Muslims.

Both have similar views about Islamic punishment.

Both insist on keeping a beard and have similar views
on keeping women in purdah.

Both consider modern education, science
and technology as secondary, often calling them not important and incompatible
with Islam and so Haram (forbidden).

(Let’s see) How Tablighi Jamaat makes common people,
especially the youth, Jihadi or supporters of Jihadis.

Suppose you are a susceptible young person exposed to
the media that tells you that Muslims are being persecuted everywhere in the
world.

You have also grown up on a diet of Islamic legends –
Islam is the final religion of the world, the torment of the Day of Judgement
would be severe, the life in the Jannat would be very cushy, and so on.

You are also pained by the injustices that happen around
you. You want to end falsehood and deception in the world and bring peace and
justice.

You are also born in a Muslim household that conditioned you
to start going to a mosque to pray.

There you often see people associated with Tablighi Jamaat,
who look decent, well behaved individuals with pleasant faces.

You see in them a reflection of all those stories you have
been fed about Islamic piety and purity.

When they tell you post-Namaz about the need to learn about
Quran and Hadith, you allow yourself to stay on in the mosque for the Sawab
(rewards) that will accrue to you.

They tell you that Allah’s religion did not come in our own
lifetimes and (so) everything that’s wrong around us is attributable to the
distance that lies between us and the religion.

Having already felt the angst of all that you feel is wrong
and been impressed by their ostensible piety, you tend to agree with them.

They then tell you that all evil could be eradicated if Islam
were to be put into action – but first we will have to assimilate religion into
our own selves.

We will have to learn the religion and work hard to bring Islam
into the lives of all human beings – and then this hard work will lead to…

That is one well-worn phrase that every Tablighi utters when
he gives you the Da’wah (invitation).

So you begin to mix with them.

They then persuade you to start
conducting Bayaan (speech) first and then Gasht (visiting local neighbourhoods),
followed by Shab e Juma (spending Thursday night at a Tablighi centre for
sermon) and Seh Roza (three-day preaching mission).

It’s said that Deen (religion) requires an atmosphere and in seeking
such an atmosphere you begin to hobnob with such people.

After certain amount of mixing with them, the second phase of
your education begins.

You are told how Muslims across the world are being
victimized. Kashmir and Palestine are cited as examples.

Having already heard of such issues through the media, you
find yourself readily agreeing with them.

Then you are told that there are two reasons behind the
decline of Muslims: their being away from the path of Islam and the
conspiracies hatched by others.

You are told that the Kuffar (those who don’t believe in
Islam) across the world have got together to plot against Islam.

Islam will have to be made to dominate the world so that
iniquity can be wiped out from the world – something that’s also incumbent upon
us as Muslims.

So here you are, away from most of your family and friends,
absorbing all this learning and undergoing a subtle transformation.

If anyone cautions you, you suspect that you are being sought
to be turned away from the path of Allah. So you turn a deaf ear to such a
caution.

Then comes a day when you start to take part in Seh Roza
(three-day preaching mission). Here you are taught about Prophet’s life, Taqwa
(cultivating fear of Allah and abstinence from sin), Jannat (heaven) and Dozakh
(hell), etc.

You are on your way to assuming an attitude of aversion
towards this perishable world.

Tablighi missionaries consistently cite a Hadith
in each of their Bayan (speech): that of the Prophet deeming this world as
insignificant as the hair on the body of a mosquito.

Meanwhile, you also meet some Tablighi missionaries who are
either active members of a Jihadi outfit or are friends with some active Jihadi.

Your mind has already been conditioned; you view Islam as the
only solution, the world as having gone astray, the reformation of the world as
your religious duty, and the pleasures of Jannat you will earn in return for
all that effort.

At the same time, you begin to look intent on bringing
non-Muslims, whom you consider the root cause of all evil, to the right path,
and on destroying them if they resist.

In this situation, a Jihadi Tablighi brother tells you about
some outfit working for the glory of Islam, mentioning the fight against the
enemies of Islam, such as India, America, and Israel.

He tells you stories – with varying degrees of truth or
falsehood – about how the Mujahideen have been hitting the enemies.

He then draws a parallel between those fights and Ghazwa-e-Badr
(the battle fought in 624 CE in western Arabia between Muhammad and his
followers and his opponents among the Quraish in Mecca; it has been passed down
in Islamic history as a decisive victory attributable to divine intervention)
in order to establish that Allah has been helping the Mujahideen because they
are on the path of truth.

By now you have become an habitué in Tablighi Jamaat; you very often
attend the Shab e Juma (spending Thursday night at a Tablighi centre for
sermon) and also take part in Seh Roza (three-day preaching mission).

You have become quiet socialized and have gotten into the
swing of things.

You listen to them on a daily basis; you have grown your
beard and begun to consider it a wrongdoing to have one’s beard shaved off.

You start to exhort women to strictly remain in purdah and
think that anyone not offering Namaz is a sinner.

You begin to view Islamic law – i.e. enforcing of Islamic
punishments – as the solution for all kinds of evil and spend your days and
nights thinking how Islam can influence the whole wide world.

The Jihadi brothers have all along been with you, explaining
to you that Islam is in danger, enemies have been plotting against us, Allah’s
Deen has been in jeopardy.

Your Namaz and Roza will earn rewards for you, but the
responsibility you have to make Islam dominate the whole world can only be
discharged through jihad.

So here you are – initiated on to the Jihadi road. If you
have the daring, you will go for training and jihad. Otherwise, you will pray
for the Jihadis, render them financial assistance when needed, provide them
sanctuary, and help them in other ways.

You will exult over Islam’s victory when Jihadi attacks, such
as the one on the World Trade Centre (in New York on 11 September 2001), are
reported on TV, and may even shout Allahu Akbar on such an occasion.

All of this happens in real life just as simply as described
here.

(That’s primarily because) very few people in our society look
askance at Tablighi Jamaat and so you easily get attracted to them.

And then the extremist views don’t sound strange to your ears
because the Maslak (sect of Islam or school of law) of the Tablighi Jamaat is
either the same as that of Taliban and Al Qaeda or very similar.

Further, Jihadis have no problem in associating themselves
with the Tablighi Jamaat because it allows freedom in joining and leaving.

The top leadership of the Tablighi Jamaat always get Dua
(invocation or prayer) performed for the success of the Jihadis in its
speeches.

Members of the ‘agencies’ who have been nurturing Jihadis
enjoy close relations with Tablighi Jamaat, such as General Javed Nasir (former
director-general of ISI who is said to have played an instrumental role in
uniting the scattered mass of warring Mujahideen groups after the Soviet
retreat) and Colonel Imam (another Pakistan Army and ISI officer who is widely
believed to have played a key role in the formation of the Taliban; he was
reported to have died in 2011, ironically while being in the custody of Taliban).

So Tablighi Jamaat gets a ‘clean chit’ from every agency.

Despite Tablighi Jamaat’s strong protestations that it has no
links with terrorists and assertion that it has no responsibility for a
terrorist, if any, being associated at some point with it, there are
indications to the contrary.

There has never been a clear condemnation of terrorists by
the Jamaat. Moreover, all terrorists have, at some point and in some manner or
the other, been associated with the Jamaat.

So it won’t be an incorrect inference to draw that it’s
Jamaat’s assent and support that has allowed this situation.

Tablighi congregations have also been the principal means of
the terrorists’ meetings, movements and activity.

Various kinds of terrorists are sighted in the annual
congregations of the Jamaat.

Pakistan has been vexed with bitter fights over criticism of Islam, the alleged insults to the religion and its prophet, not to mention a violence prone 'Takfiri' culture that has 'Muslims' accusing each other of being 'Kafir'.

One of the latest controversies has been the outrage expressed over Facebook pages called Bhensa (buffalo), Mochi (cobbler), and Roshni (light), which seemed to have acted as forums for blunt and audacious criticism and discussion of Islam, mullahs/Islamists, and the government and military establishment of Pakistan.

Police cases have been registered against people thought to have been behind these "blasphemous" forums.

An Islamabad High Court judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, cried bitterly while observing that he expected the interior minister to “take some steps in his own supervision to eliminate the evil, even at the cost of blocking the entirety of social media”.

These Facebook pages have since been blocked or taken over by authorities.

However, a site with URL https://bhensaa.wordpress.com/ continues to be functional, carrying what appears to be some of the content originally published on Facebook page Bhensa.

I have taken two Urdu pieces from this site, translated them into English, and posted them below.

Neither of the two pieces carries the name of the writer, but both bear the date of posting.

The two pieces are without headlines. So I have given my own headlines in brackets.

I have also given the Web-link to each of the two Urdu pieces on the bhensaa.wordpress.com as well as the dates of their publication.

The first piece is an account of how the writer began to see the world without the "blinkers of faith" after the Peshawar terror attack that killed 132 school children.

The second is a very short piece, more typical of a casual social media post, in which the writer suggests that Muslims tell legends about their prophet so as to build a false image of him.

Here are the two pieces.-------

(How my view of Islam changed)

(Posted on December 1, 2015 by Bhensa)

Until about
a year ago I used to detest the Mulhid people (those who have left Islam). I
wouldn't even think of going anywhere near their (social media) page.

Once I got
my hands on ‘Tasavvur e Khuda’ (‘The concept of God’), the book written by
Arshad Mehmood (first published in 1997), but couldn’t summon up the courage to
read it lest it should lead me astray.

So how did I
come round to a different point of view?

The Peshawar
attack (on a school on 16 Dec. 2014, in which Tehrik-e-Taliban militants killed
141 people, including 132 children) had a severe effect on my mind. I have
small children of my own.

When Taliban
cited Hadith (reports of words and deeds of Prophet of Islam) to defend its
act, I found myself studying Islam in order to be able to verify that Hadith.

The more I
delved into my study, the more I realized that the whole of Islamic history was
replete with such acts.

As I grew in
understanding without the blinkers of faith, I realized that Islam is a
religion that could be used by anyone for any purpose.

Zia (Zia ul
Haq, the military dictator who ruled Pakistan from 1978 until his death in
1988) had said he wanted to put Islam into action.

There are
still people in Pakistan who admire and remember Zia.

The same can
be said about Taliban who also want to put Islam and Shariat into effect.

I am hundred
per cent confident that this process is not going to end; Pakistan has every chance
of once again becoming a strictly Islamic country.

Islam
continues to hold a lot of appeal for people.

I then began
to regret the blinkers of faith that made me overlook what Islam was all about.

Earlier, an
anti-Islam website would make my blood boil.

No longer.

I remember some years ago becoming very angry at the sight of
a Belgian website making fun of the young age of Aisha (when she was made to
marry the Prophet of Islam) by publishing a cartoon of hers with Muhammad.

I wanted to break the hands of that cartoonist.

Now I learnt that Aisha was indeed nine years old (when she had
already been married to Muhammad).

I got a rude shock when I learnt about Muhammad’s multiple
wives; the Islamic Studies books meant for children only mention Khadija and
Aisha.

And then I learnt that he had 11 wives.

When the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ (an anti-Islam short film
uploaded to YouTube in 2012) was made, I couldn’t bring myself to watch that
film.

I would wonder as to how anyone could cast such an insult
upon the glory of the Prophet.

I couldn’t fathom why access to YouTube had been barred,
wondering who on earth would want to watch that movie.

I had also heard about ‘Rangila Rasul’ (a book published in
Lahore in the 1920s about the marriages and sex lives of Muhammad that resulted
in the murder of the publisher), but did not have the nerve to read it.

Now I learnt that all those cartoons, films and books were
based on Hadith.

On a visit to the United Kingdom, I got the opportunity to
read Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ (first published in 1988 and
inspired in part by the life of Muhammad).

Muslims have this strange habit of expressing deep anguish
whenever anyone points out the controversial and insulting material that fills
the pages of their own Hadith and other books.

Being a Muslim means that your mind functions very
differently from what can be called the Western logical thinking. You can have
two entirely different and mutually inconsistent thoughts in your mind at the
same time – and yet it’s quite normal for you to have that state of mind.

So I watched thousands of YouTube videos, read books, and
visited various websites.

One of my teachers used to advise us against believing any of
the stuff on Islam available on the Internet lest that should weaken our faith.

Now I understood why he would say that; the more something is
hidden from you the more you grow curious about it.

When things about Islam are sought to be covered up, one gets
the feeling that something is wrong somewhere.

Now I feel a lot lighter! I feel as if I have fallen in love
with life.

I no longer feel like hating people of other religions.

Go by your faith in order to find contentment, they say. I
say you have contentment if you haven’t encroached upon what is someone’s due
and stayed away from hurting anyone.

I continue to look for truth, but one thing can be said
definitively: once a doubt sprouts in your mind, it’s very difficult to go back
to where you once were.

Monday, April 10, 2017

As is the wont of almost all mainstream media in India, the Hindustan Times employs Orwellian terms to describe resistance offered by Sarna communities in Jharkhand to Christianization and threat to their own cultural survival as a "proselytising campaign" launched by the Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

In a 10 April 2017 report full of quotation marks showing its barely veiled contempt for a drive allegedly undertaken by the RSS to make "Christianity-free" the Arki area in Jharkhand, the newspaper said: "Ghar Wapsi, the Hindi word for homecoming, is the proselytising campaign launched by some Hindu outfits to convert non-Hindus and “bringing them back into the fold of Hinduism”.

Even while the HT report quotes a tribal leader as explaining the nature of the campaign, it completely omits any mention of the years of Sarna resistance to Christianization, including a massive rally of local people in 2013 against the Roman Catholic Church's installation of a statue that depicts Mary and Jesus as a local saree-clad woman holding her baby.

So the HT would have you believe through its tendentious and wrongly informed reporting that resistance to Christianization and working against its fratricidal effects, if any, constitutes a "proselytising campaign" --- and the actual "proselytising campaign" of conversion to Christianity does not even need to be mentioned as if it were some kind of service provided by a local primary health centre!

Also read the report linked below of August 2013 of The Indian Express (not free from the bias that the Indian media employs in reporting or not reporting the enormous crimes committed by the Christian churches in India) to get a background of the Sarna resistance to Christianization in Jharkhand.

The Roman Catholic Church has been employing the same ethnocidal tools against cultures in India that it has used for centuries against indigenous communities/cultures across the world, most strikingly in the Americas.

The Church uses inculturation --- an ethnocidal tool developed and refined over centuries through its brutal colonization of the world and the massive anthropological studies that have been undertaken by the Western colonizers --- to inoculate a culture with its Jesus myth, which gradually poisons the ethnosphere enough with fratricidal conflict to allow for progressively easier Christianization and eventual stifling of the targeted culture.

In purely conceptual terms, ethnocide means targeting the 'syncretism' of a culture.

'Syncretism' simply means societies regarding diversity and even contrariety of ideas and practices as perfectly natural.

It should be easy to imagine for any sensible person as to why it would be quite impossible for a society to function smoothly without 'syncretism'.

'Syncretism is what distinguishes 'culture' from 'religion'. Every human culture can't help but be 'syncretistic.'

'Religion' (by which I mean only Judeo-Christianity and Islam), on the other hand, rejects 'syncretism' even while exploiting it for its own totalitarian ends.

Judeo-Christianity and Islam abhor and anathematize 'syncretism' because 'syncretism' stands in the way of their false dogma of just ONE person (Jesus or Muhammad) being chosen and commissioned by the singular and jealous God to open the door of divinity, truth, and salvation to all of humanity.

So the Roman Catholic Church goes about professing an interest in a community or culture and gets its missionaries to learn the language and mix with people.

The Church learns about the cultural expressions of the people (such as the iconography of what they hold dear or sacred) and then begins to insinuate the Jesus myth into those cultural expressions, often with the help of global evangelizing organisations that provide the intellectual resources through seminars on 'theology', academic studies, and anthropological data, etc.

All this is done doggedly over years or decades during which the missionaries manage to get a church or two planted, and set up church-funded schools/health centres as well as the so called local 'human rights' groups.

The Roman Catholic Church as well as other branches of Christianity have been carrying out such ethnocidal operations over centuries in all parts of the world. Such 'culture killing' operations are resourced locally as well as nationally and internationally because of the global hegemony that the West enjoys not only in 'religious' terms but also 'secular'.

Such has been brutal effect of these ethnocidal operations that the Roman Catholic Church destroyed cultural diversity of the entire south America in a matter of a century or two and forced millions of its victims to profess the Jesus myth.

The Vatican says the following in an 'apostolic exhortation' called 'Evangelii Nuntiandi'.

"Strata of humanity which are transformed: for the Church it is a question not only of preaching the Gospel in ever wider geographic areas or to ever greater numbers of people, but also of affecting and as it were upsetting, through the power of the Gospel, mankind's criteria of judgment, determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration and models of life, which are in contrast with the Word of God and the plan of salvation."

“All this could he expressed in the following words: what matters is to evangelize man's culture and cultures (not in a purely decorative way, as it were, by applying a thin veneer, but in a vital way, in depth and right to their very roots), in the wide and rich sense which these terms have in Gaudium et spes, always taking the person as one's starting-point and always coming back to the relationships of people among themselves and with God.

The Gospel, and therefore evangelization, are certainly not identical with culture, and they are independent in regard to all cultures. Nevertheless, the kingdom which the Gospel proclaims is lived by men who are profoundly linked to a culture, and the building up of the kingdom cannot avoid borrowing the elements of human culture or cultures."

Christianity thus positions itself as an ethnocidal (i.e. 'culture killing') force in the world, whose aim is to work against 'syncretism' of human cultures across the world and replace it with a dead, homogenizing dogma of the so called 'monotheism' as expressed in the Jesus myth.

Tribals' body, the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Mahasabha, has been bitterly opposing the ethnocidal operation that the Vatican has undertaken in Jharkhand to homogenize and Christianize the local communities.

The tribal people organised a massive rally in Ranchi in 2013 against the church's installation of a statue depicting 'Mother Mary' dressed as a tribal woman, obviously as part of the Vatican's worldwide employment of 'inculturation' to convert people to Christianity.

The Church's response has been a brazen attempt to defeat local resistance to evangelization by falsely claiming that it's the Sangh Parivar that's 'communalizing' the issue by mobilizing local people against it.

Search This Blog

About Me

Delhi-based journalist, having worked for a business magazine and a news agency.
Also worked as a researcher on local democracy and right to information for an NGO.
Having left my latest employment at a magazine on governance, where I contributed to ideation and wrote on public policy from the perspective of common citizens, in September 2010, I am currently engaged in freelancing.
At the NGO, I participated in a rare experiment in bringing face to face the people and their representatives and officials in the municipal bodies. At the business magazine, I wrote on finance, economy, business, education, healthcare, etc. At the news agency, my longest employer so far, I worked on the business and economy desk, but also did some news reporting and writing. I believe we Indians are going through a very slow but sure democratic awakening, which is due to greater flow of information. We must sustain this process of awakening and help each other out of ignorance. This ignorance enslaves us to the elite that currently handles the levers of power.